


out / in / on

by yotsu8a



Series: extensions [3]
Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M, Moving In Together, Moving Out, Pre-Slash, Trans Female Character, but they're intimate and end up Together later in this AU so i'm tagging it as ship!!, she isn't out to anyone except shim so she's referred to w masculine pronouns in dialogue, shim and eiichi aren't actually Together in a romantic or sexual sense in this fic, trans woman mido
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 15:27:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15197753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yotsu8a/pseuds/yotsu8a
Summary: Loneliness, he supposed, was the common thread between them.





	out / in / on

**Author's Note:**

> warning for vague discussion / references to character death, very very brief and non-explicit references to alcohol, and misgendering of a trans character ( in a non-malicious way; takahashi doesn't know that mido is trans and shimura doesn't want to out her ). it gets sad but is pretty tame in the ways of content matter.

“That was the last of it, right?”

The dresser was set to rest against the wall, and Shimura finally allowed himself to do the same. The heat outside had been growing more and more unbearable for the better part of the summer; the house’s air conditioning was a saving grace, but he was still distinctly sweaty and uncomfortable. His shirt would have come off a long time ago if he weren't more concerned with staying decent in front of his present company.

“Yeah, I think so.” He wiped a hand over his forehead, shoving back damp clumps of dark hair. Sweat trickled into his ear and he swiped at it crossly. “Thanks for coming out to help.”

“It’s not a problem.” Mido’s fingers traced absently over the closet’s wooden doorframe. “I’d hardly call it _helping_ at all.”

“You stopped me from falling down the stairs.”

“Please, Shimura, I’m barely even sweaty. You hardly let me touch the furniture.” She turned to face him, eyebrows furrowing. “But _you_ look exhausted. At least have something to drink.”

He smiled. “You brought the Wild Turkey?”

“I was referring to _water_ , Shimura.”

“Yeah, I know.”

The descent back to the kitchen felt strange, and he couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take before he would really feel _safe_ traversing this house. It had taken long enough for him to settle into the last one — that had been more than eight years ago now, and it had seemingly served him well enough for a while, but the ending was poor enough to raise several more concerns this time around. The acute sense that he was being _watched_ , being observed like some sort of science experiment (or, more accurately, a prison inmate), remained despite his best efforts to cast it aside. This time it would be different. They had already made sure of that much. 

“You have good taste,” Mido stated flatly once they had reached the kitchen, finally pulling Shimura out of his reflections. Something about her tone indicated that she was making a joke, but he couldn’t pick out anything particularly funny about the statement. “Still, I thought you were looking for something … smaller.”

“‘Smaller’ relative to the number of occupants,” Shimura answered after he had time to surface for air, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He had already drained more than half of the water bottle. “I actually need the room this time around — and anyway, it’s not like I picked it on my own.” 

Mido shrugged. “Speak of the devil.”

The door swung shut in announcement of Takahashi’s entrance, but the man himself barely even made eye contact. He wasn’t anywhere near as sweaty as his new housemate and his shirt seemed fresh, but there was a familiarly exhausted quality haunting his frame. His hair had been tied up loosely and he raised a hand to let it back down. 

“Haru’s room is done,” Shimura stated with as much an enthusiasm as he could muster in a thinly-veiled attempt to catch Takahashi’s attention. “We can show it to her Monday. That’s the last one, too — did you get the washing machine installed?”

“Yeah.” Takahashi landed heavily on one of the tall chairs positioned around the kitchen island, huffing through his nose. “Took long enough. I didn’t think it would be so tough to figure out.”

Shimura’s hand rested sympathetically on the other man’s shoulder; Mido leaned back against the counter and responded, “You could have asked me for help. It wasn’t like I was doing much anywhere else.”

“You were doing plenty,” Shimura insisted. Takahashi was silent, eyes fixed on the granite top of the island, so he took it upon himself to press on. “I’ll probably get dinner ready soon — need to start getting a feel for this kitchen. Are you staying?”

“Not tonight.” Mido’s voice was hesitant, barely enough for him to notice. “I have plans. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Plans? Who with?”

“Family.”

He felt Takahashi stiffen under his hand; come to think of it, Mido typically seemed to avoid the topic of family, but he neglected to dwell on it. It wasn’t like she had any reason to lie to him. 

“Alright.” Shimura dropped his hand from Takahashi’s shoulder. “Tomorrow, then.”

It was after he saw their guest to the door, expressions of unwanted gratitude on his lips all the way, that Shimura turned his attention back to Takahashi. He had relaxed noticeably as soon as Mido disappeared into the gradually dimming evening, rising from his seat in the kitchen and offering the other man a shaky, aimless half-smile. Shimura, for his own part, hesitated briefly at the door before making his way to the couch situated in the living room and motioning for Takahashi to join him.

“We should probably decide what to have for dinner,” he stated finally, leaning slightly against Takahashi’s shoulder. “But, uh, first… Did something — did something happen between you and Mido? You seem nervous around … him.”

“N-not really.”

The answer was unconvincing and they both knew it, but denying to speak about his thoughts and issues had almost become ritual for Takahashi at this point. It had also become ritual, in a sense, for Shimura to respond by gradually pulling them out of him, but tonight he abstained. If Takahashi didn’t want to talk about it, he could let the issue rest a while longer. Maybe they could solve it without Shimura intervening; he’d refrain from prodding him any further for the time being.

“He was right, though,” Takahashi commented tentatively; Shimura looked up at him. “Earlier, I mean — we really could’ve hired some people to do the heavy lifting for us.”

“No, I… You’re not wrong, Takahashi, but you … you know why we didn’t do that.”

He was skirting around the topic on purpose — what good would talking about it do anymore? The cameras and wiretaps had been an unavoidable fact; there was nothing Shimura could do now to stop that, to stop the knowledge that his every move, every breath had been followed, for god only knows how long before he found out. The one thing he _could_ do, however, was insure that this time around, things would be different. The most important part was the significant amount of money they had put into a far more advanced security system, but even then, Shimura refused to let any stranger handle his belongings. Maybe Mido saw it as ridiculous — somehow, he imagined Takahashi was more on his side with this one, since Mido hadn’t had _her_ privacy invaded like they had — but his resolve remained unwavering.

It was, in part, why they had decided to move into a new house together in the first place, he supposed. Shimura was tired of the haunting, ever-present knowledge that he was being _watched_ (not just _suspicion_ , not anymore, he knew that much for certain), of the even worse fate of being left alone to that fact and to his own panicked, anxious contemplations. He couldn’t handle another day of sitting alone with all the _what-ifs_ and _maybes_ , especially not in such a large house — Hatori (god, Hatori) had commented once that it was really a large place for one single man, and after the Kira affair ended he had only become _more_ conscious of it, and that had reminded him of Hatori, and being reminded of Hatori always made everything worse. But the house wasn’t the problem, not entirely — no, the problem was the loneliness, was waking up scared and alone and nauseous every night, was retching his guts out in the bathroom every morning and wishing, desperately wishing, that he didn’t have to face the day alone. 

Loneliness, he supposed, was the common thread between them, but he knew it was different for Takahashi, came from a different place. Shimura had been alone for years and had only recently realized how badly he wanted _out_ ; Takahashi, on the other hand, was well aware that he depended on others, that he couldn’t handle living alone. His daughter was with him, at least, on week days, but the idea of spending the weekend alone after growing accustomed to spending it with family had to be desperately sad. He needed to live with _someone_ , needed to have someone there with him, and when the divorce was finalized and he had nowhere to go and no one to stay with, of course Shimura had offered him a place to stay until he found one of his own, and of course Shimura had invited him to make it a permanent residence once he moved into a new house. He couldn’t avoid the idea, not after seeing the utter _devastation_ the concept of living alone had wrought on Takahashi, not after realizing just how much he _enjoyed_ having someone to spend his time with at home. 

Maybe it was strange to be moving in with another man at their age, but Shimura had stopped caring about _strange_ a long time ago.

“Hatori asked me once if it ever got lonely, living in such a large house on my own,” he said finally. “I didn’t realize just how lonely it really was until … until it was too late for me to tell him that. I guess … I guess it won’t be lonely here, though. I hope that would make him happy.”

Takahashi gripped his hand tightly.

“Y-you know, it’s … it’s funny,” he responded slowly; Shimura could feel him swallow. “I never … I never even went to his funeral. I was scared that Kira would kill me if I showed up. I-I should have gone. … I hardly knew him. We barely ever talked, but I … I miss him. I miss having him around. Is that weird?”

_I miss him, too. I miss his smile and his laugh and his eyes and his voice, I miss talking to him and reading his stories and going out for drinks. I could have done more, I could have stopped it — I never even told him —_

There was a tight pain in Shimura’s chest. “No. No, that’s not weird.”

“I wonder if the others ever think about him.”

“I’m sure they do.” Shimura hesitated; his fingers tightened around Takahashi’s hand. “Y-you know what? There’s nothing wrong with … with missing things. But this is … this is new. You’re here, and I’m here, and we’re together someplace new. We’ll make this place a home. It’ll just be you and me — and Haru, half the time — and we’ll be home. We’ll be safe, Eiichi.”

He couldn’t help but think that he didn’t deserve safety anymore, not after what he did to achieve it, but _Takahashi_ — Takahashi did, at least. If he could make this place feel like a home, if he could make him feel like he was safe and loved, then at least he had survived for a reason. 

“Y-yeah. You're … you’re right.”

Shimura glanced out the window; the sunset outside was red and pink, clouds forming twisted shapes and pouring out shafts of colored sky, and he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Shimura?” Takahashi’s hand was on his shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“Maybe we should get takeout.”

**Author's Note:**

> so. this is a series now, bc i have too many fic ideas for this AU to not make it a series. as far as timing goes, this fic is set a few months after 'that joke isn't funny anymore.', which is set just after the yotsus' canonical death date.
> 
> http://sugurushimura.tumblr.com/


End file.
